Systems utilizing transcription databases suffer under the weight presented by the task of managing huge volumes of data. The sheer size of complete lexicons containing word strings with associated phonemes for transcription present many obstacles to successful access and management of the data. Some attempted solutions have implemented full-text scanning for matches in a large dictionary using hash functions. Others have implemented hashing techniques to identify candidates within a lexicon. Nevertheless, difficulties remain to be solved.
One such difficulty relates to the tradeoff regarding computational requirements of data access and management algorithms versus lexicon memory requirements. Specifically, memories operable with data processing systems that are capable of storing large amounts of data are typically very slow, whereas memories fast enough to readily accomplish search and sort algorithms are typically so small as to restrict the content of the lexicon. No solution has been presented for surmounting the obstacle thus presented. Thus, presenting a solution for surmounting this obstacle remains the task of the present invention.